Thursday, March 13, 2014

The postman delivered a treat this morning! Quiltmania's 100th Issue! Filled with fabulous quilts and patterns for fabulous quilts. Here is a sneak peak!

I especially love the skill of Japanese quilters and there was a great section on the 12th Quilt Nihon Exhibition. I especially liked the playful quilt Dandelion by Hatsumi Satou and Flowers in the Crystal by Kiyoko Ishihara.

A real beauty got a full page layout, My Baltimore Album Quilt IV by Miki Yakita, in a very grabbing red!

Another goody was a feature on Reiko Kato's beautiful taupe quilts.

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Kids always tell you like it is. And the first thing my daughter said over my shoulder, "Why are the colors so boring?"

Charlene Mills wrote an article, The last word on Japanese Taupes that was featured in The Chocolate City Quilters blog that explains it far better than I did to my daughter. She seemed to be satisfied though and appreciated the reasoning behind it.

"Historical background

It is said that Taupes remind the Japanese of the fabrics their grandmothers and great-grandmothers wore for casual dress: sturdy cottons that could take the wear-and-tear of everyday life, with an ashy background to hide dirt, and prints that reflected the natural world. (In contrast, silk, the brighter the better, was the preferred fabric for anything formal.)"

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

The reason I sew by hand is because you can sew much more intricate shapes easily. Machine piecing is great for simpler quilts but when your pieces are small and join at all kinds of angles, it's just as fast, if not faster to do it by hand. Using your hands on small pieces gives you added accuracy that you loose when you, whoops, accidentally sew a little to far on your machine. Inset Y seams are dreaded on the machine because it requires very accurate starting and stopping. It's only a headache on the machine. Hand piecing inset seams is no different than sewing any regular seam.

If I am going to quilt a standard nine-patch, I would naturally use my machine. Lots of straight lines, just zip right along. After quilting for about 7 years I started to feel limited to the types of quilts I could make with those easy straight lines. It wasn't until I started hand sewing (Houses from scraps) that I broke through the straight line barrier and realized how liberating hand sewing was. YES! I SAID HAND SEWING WAS LIBERATING! Any shape, any angle, any size is just as easily sewn. Did I mention I could sew anywhere too?

For me, sewing started to get stressful. I was always looking for the most efficient method to get through it as quick as possible. Blimey, my shoulders were tense as I hunkered over my machine alone in my room. I felt guilty about separating myself from the family. My focus was speed....how fast...could I get it done? Sure I got tops finished in a few days. I quickly started a project, quickly sewed it and almost just as quickly got sick of the quilt. I liked it for a while. "Quickly" is a relative term. Even very ugly quilts take time to make. Any quilter knows you invest enough time in quilt that you should love it when you are done, not just sort of like it for a while. That is at least how I feel. I have a stack of quilts knee high that I have folded away because I don't like them anymore. It represents a lot of time spent quilting. The cat sleeps on one in her basket. Bless her heart. The dog has one in her car cage..etc.. I was experimenting with techniques, colors, styles. Trying to find myself in quilting. Now I have a slightly different approach to quilting. I don't make a quilt unless I LOVE it, love it enough that I think generations to come will seriously appreciate it. Future generations won't give my knee-high stack of quick quilts a second look before binning them. I can't blame them. Dump them. Go ahead. I don't really mind.

And like I said before....Even ugly quilts take a looooong time to make. Quilts shouldn't be disposable. When I contemplate starting a quilt I think long term...starting when my children are grown. Will they want to hang on to it? or chuck it? If it passes the long term quilt
test I don't mind investing a lot of time making a quality, intricate, hand pieced quilt.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

I think Japanese quilts and quilters are the best! Hands down, Japanese quilters are some pretty sophisticated quilters. I admire the detail, precision and skill that is japanese. Japanese magazine subscriptions are pretty pricey but well worth it in my opinion. I ordered a subscription to Japan Quilts and recieved my first installment #155. I literally did a happy dance out by the mail boxes for all the neighbors to see. I was a little disappointed by the first few pages since it was all Christmas crafts (my family doesn't celebrate Christmas). I am really impressed by the intricate quilts they were supplying patterns for. I drooled quite a bit and decided to start slow by making a purse.

About Me

I started quilting in 2005 and never looked back. I'm an american living in Norway with three young kids (affectionately known as my little mess-makers), 2 cats, 1 dog and loving hubby. We have LONG winters that are perfect for spending time indoors making persnickety quilts.